Night of the Sasquatch

by Eric S. Brown

  “Hang on!” Joe heard Kennedy yelling as he continued to pour on the gas. The truck built speed as it bounced up onto the main road and took off like a bat out of hell. Cradling his broken arm to his chest, Joe sat up in the truck’s rear looking out at the road behind it. The other truck was still trying to escape the Sasquatch. Several of the beasts clung to its sides. They swung there, hammering at the vehicle with their fists and raking their claws over the metal of its frame. Their weight was too much at so many odd points for the truck’s driver to keep control of the speeding vehicle. The truck careened off the road. Its hood met the trunk of a large tree, folding up from the impact. Then something blew inside the truck. It blossomed into an expanding ball of red and orange flames. Some of the Sasquatch that had been clinging to it died instantly. Others thrashed away from the burning vehicle, the hair of their bodies on fire.

  But they had made it. Kennedy had their own truck moving so fast now that the Sasquatch were shrinking into the distance behind it. Joe let out an exhausted sigh of relief and then snapped the bone of his forearm back into place. The pain of doing so shot through his tired body like an electric current. His eyes rolled up to show only whites in the moment before his body flopped over to lay still in the rear of the truck between the crates stacked around him.

  ****

  When Joe woke up, he saw Karen kneeling next to him. His mind wasn’t able to process much about where he was but he could tell that it wasn’t the rear of the truck anymore. Whatever he was lying on was soft under his back.

  “Joe?” Karen asked. “Are you okay?”

  Though she was right next to him, her voice sounded as if it was coming from miles away.

  “You gave us a pretty good scare there, buddy,” Kennedy said from somewhere near Joe’s other side.

  “Where …Where am I?” Joe rasped.

  “You’re back in Cedarmark, buddy,” Kennedy told him. “We made it home.”

  “Home?” Joe repeated the word.

  Joe’s mind began to clear. Shaking his head as if to finish the job of making that happen, Joe realized that he was lying in a bed. He was in what appeared to be the room of a makeshift medical center.

  “The colonel’s going to want to see you real soon, Joe,” Kennedy told him.

  “Karen …” Joe said. “Did you…?”

  “I had to Joe. I’m sorry,” she answered him.

  “Look, Joe …” Kennedy said. “It don’t matter to me what you are. You saved my life out there, buddy. You saved a lot of us. If it hadn’t been for you, none of us would have even made it to the armory much less been able to get what we needed from it.”

  “Only one truck …” Joe protested.

  “One truck is better than zero,” Kennedy assured him. “It was loaded up with ammo and medical supplies. They’re going to make a huge difference here, Joe.”

  “Not enough … price too high,” Joe said.

  Joe saw that Kennedy couldn’t argue either of those things though it sure looked like he wanted to.

  “Man, we all did what we could. You have to try to look on the bright side, okay?” Kennedy told him.

  Joe’s strength and consciousness were growing with each passing second. He sat up in the bed. Karen put her hands on him to try to make him lay down again but he wasn’t having it. Joe gently removed her hands from him.

  “I have to go,” Joe said and looked down at his body. “Where are my clothes and weapons?”

  “Not here so you might as well try to rest,” Karen urged him.

  “No,” Joe said firmly. “I’ve lived through this before. I know how things are going to play out now that the colonel knows what I am. I need to be on my way. Now.”

  “Is that so?” Colonel Flint’s voice boomed as he stepped into the room. “And where would you go, Joe? There’s nowhere else left to run to.”

  Joe’s eyes snapped around in the direction of the colonel’s voice. The colonel had entered the room with a .44 Magnum aimed at him.

  “Colonel!” Karen shouted as she saw the weapon too.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Kennedy demanded, rising to his feet out of the chair next to Joe’s bed that he had been sitting in.

  “Calm yourself, soldier,” Colonel Flint warned Kennedy. “This gun is just a precaution. Nothing more.”

  “Right,” Karen growled, looking like she didn’t believe what Colonel Flint had said for a second.

  “I’ll be needing some time alone with Joe now,” Colonel Flint told Karen and Kennedy. He gestured at the door. “If you would be so kind, that is.”

  “No.” Karen shook her head. “I am not leaving him with you.”

  “You say that as if you had a choice, little lady.” Colonel Flint smirked. “This is my city. I’m in command here. Either leave this room or I will have you both removed from it.”

  “Come on, Karen,” Kennedy said, taking her by the arm.

  Karen shook her arm free of Kennedy’s hold on it and glared at him and Colonel Flint.

  “This isn’t the time or the place,” Joe heard Kennedy whisper to Karen as he leaned closer to her. Then he said more loudly, “We need to go now.”

  Karen took a final look at Joe with tears welling up in her eyes and said, “I’m sorry, Joe.”

  Kennedy led her out of the room as Colonel Flint plopped into a chair at the foot of the bed Joe was in.

  “I lost a lot of good people out there, Mr. Reynolds,” Colonel Flint said when they were gone. “I’m not very happy about that especially considering how little you brought back with you.”

  “The trip to the armory was your idea, Colonel,” Joe said. “I told you how dangerous it was.”

  “Yes, you did. However, it was your job to see my people back here alive with the supplies this city so desperately needed. You failed in both regards.” Colonel Flint frowned, leaning forward in his chair. “And now I learn that you’re not even really a human being, Mr. Reynolds. Exactly how am I supposed to handle that?”

  “You’re going to let me walk out of here, Colonel,” Joe said. “Anything else on your part will end in blood, blood that will be on your hands.”

  Colonel Flint laughed, long and loud. “You think so, huh?”

  “I know so,” Joe warned him.

  “Before we get into what’s going to happen between us, Mr. Reynolds, I need some answers. You mentioned that you were stationed at a place called Project Ares. I did some digging in my memory and I remember that place now. What you said backs up what Karen told me that you admitted to her. What I need to know right now is what exactly are you, Mr. Reynolds, and why are you really here?”

  “Fine.” Joe sighed. He doubted whatever talk they were about to have would change things but at least it bought him more time without bloodshed and gunfire.

  Joe cleared his throat. “I am an APEX soldier. I was once a human being like you. Maybe I still am, maybe I am not. Who knows other than God? My wife and I were newly married. We weren’t making ends meet on just a soldier’s income.”

  “I’ve been there,” Colonel Flint said, truly sounding sympathetic. “It can be rough when you’re starting out in the service.”

  “Anyway, I heard of the Ares Project. A few sleazy sorts of agents came around the unit I was a part of asking for volunteers. They promised more money, better lodging for my wife … lots of things. We talked it over and I signed up with them. I knew what they were doing had to be off the books as soon as my wife and I arrived at the Project Ares facility. My daughter was only two. The daycare support alone made it all seem worth it, whatever the risks to me. My wife’s happiness was the most important thing in the world to me. I wanted to make sure she and my daughter were taken care of.”

  Colonel Flint granted his approval of what he was saying. “I can understand that.”

  “The doctors at the project told me that they were going to make me into a super soldier. That sounded pretty good to me too. Heightened senses and strength, off the chart reflexes, the whol
e deal. What they didn’t tell me was that they would be altering everything about me in order to make that happen. I grew colder every day I was under the treatments. That’s what my wife told me. My affection was being replaced by something akin to a tactical operating system. I don’t mean cybernetic crap or some sort of neural net. My very brain was being rewired. By the time the treatments were done, my wife was on the verge of leaving me. She didn’t, thank God. She hung in there like a real trooper and I knew she really loved me. My daughter too. I had just finished up the treatments and was in the process of my trial runs when the Sasquatch went to war with the human race.”

  “So you were used as a weapon against the beasts?” Colonel Flint asked.

  “No, I was actually in … storage, getting ready to be shipped out to somewhere in the Middle East when the war started. My wife and daughter were still on the base. I knew they would be safe there. That’s what I thought. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Either I got lost in the chaos of the war or the C.O.s of Project Ares had bigger things to worry with than me. No one woke me up when the Sasquatch attacked the base. They tore through it in a rampage of violence, wiping out everyone there. Somehow in the battle at the base, something triggered me being woken up. I came to without a clue as to what was going on.”

  Colonel Flint was shaking his head at Joe’s story. It was a lot to take in.

  “I figured out what had happened really quickly. A piece of shrapnel from some doctor’s suicide grenade had hit the controls of the chamber I was in. That was what had woken me up. He was dead and everyone else with him. I headed straight for my house where my wife and daughter were. Those bastard things had…” Joe paused for a moment, struggling to control himself and not allowing tears to form in his eyes in front of the colonel. “They had killed them too. I went crazy. There were still Sasquatch on the base and around it. I had killed a few of the monsters on the way to my house. When I came out of it, seeing what the monsters had done, I lost it. I sent every beast left in the area to Hell. That took a while. Even being turned into what I am now, that took some time. I wasn’t a match for them one on one at first. I had to get used to what I could do and learn how to use the upgrades that had been made to my body. I learned fast though.” There was pride in Joe’s voice as he spoke about killing the Sasquatch.

  “If you were at Project Ares, then how did you end up in Whitmire?” Colonel Flint challenged him. “That’s where you originally said you came from, is it not?”

  “Whitmire was just the last city I was in before I came here to Cedarmark, Colonel,” Joe said. “When my killing spree at Project Ares was over, I was still in pain, shaken to my core by the loss of my family. I didn’t even know who or what I was anymore. There was no purpose I could see to my existence … but then I discovered that not everyone in the world was dead. I armed myself and left Project Ares, wandering from one human stronghold to another. I’ve watched three cities burn, Colonel Flint. Three. Two of them much larger and stronger than your own city here. When Whitmire fell, Cedarmark was the only remaining city that remained that I knew about. I traveled here on foot just like I said.”

  “But why?” Colonel Flint pressed him

  “Why not, Colonel? Like you keep reminding me, there is no place else to go. Every other city I had been to accepted my help at first but always turned on me in the end. Their people thought I was a freak, a monster, just like those things out there beyond your wall. In Canton, the people there actually tried to string me up, hang me for not being like them. I had to fight my way out. I’m not proud of that but I did. I left a lot of bodies in those streets doing it too. Enough that they no longer had the manpower to defend the place. I watched Canton fall from the hills above it. The screams of that day still haunt me in my sleep,” Joe said. “Cedarmark was all that was left. I came here not so much as to help you but to give myself one more chance at fitting in, seeing if I could pass for human. Clearly, I can’t, Colonel.”

  Colonel Flint stared at Joe for a long time without saying a word. Joe left the silence between them unbroken until the colonel had finally collected his thoughts.

  “I’m not going to try to hang you, Joe, or burn you at the stake,” Colonel Flint told him. “Though I will admit those thoughts have crossed my mind. Frankly, Joe, I need you. All of us here do. The trip to armory has stirred up the Sasquatch out there. Their nightly attacks on the wall stopped two days ago.”

  “Two days? How long have I been out?” Joe blinked in shock.

  “We’ve kept you sedated for the past three days. Let me tell you that just about used up our supply of sedatives to do it but I wanted to be sure of what I was really going to do when you came around. Despite all that effort, I wasn’t sure, Joe. Not until I heard what you’ve just told me. My offer for you to stay here, be a part of what we’re trying to protect and build, that stands. But you need to know that if you do stay, it’s going to be a fight. One hell of one too. I think the Sasquatch have backed off from their attacks because they are getting ready for one big, final push. They mean to break us, Joe.”

  Joe was stunned by Colonel Flint’s invitation for him to stay. He wasn’t sure that it was something he could fully believe. The colonel was right about needing him though. If things were playing out with the Sasquatch like Colonel Flint claimed, the odds were against the city surviving, even if he did join its residents in defending it.

  “So how about it, Joe?” Colonel Flint asked. “Will you join us and help this city survive what’s surely coming?”

  “I’m in.” Joe nodded.

  ****

  “We’ve only got a few hours until nightfall,” Colonel Flint said to those gathered in the war room he had set up in Cedarmark’s city hall. “That doesn’t give us much time to get things ready for the guests we have got coming.”

  No one laughed at the joke he had attempted to make. Tensions were running too high. Everyone in the city was scared for their lives. The Sasquatch were about to return and death was coming with them.

  “With Lieutenant Wagner gone, sir,” Henson, a blonde man that Joe hadn’t seen before, said, “and losing the previous head of the city militia too, things have been rather difficult. There’s been breakdowns in the overall command structure and things simply haven’t been getting done like they had been.”

  “Mr. Henson, I appointed you the new head of the city’s militia because I believed you could get things done and handle it. Are you saying I was wrong?” Colonel Flint demanded.

  “Um … no, sir.” Henson swallowed hard, clearly not wanting his new position of power taken away from him. “It’s just that we’re behind on the manufacturing of ammo and our inventory of what we have on hand has been compromised as well. Things are a lot worse on that front than they seemed to appear, even with the addition of what the expedition crew brought back.”

  “What do you mean worse? How much worse could it be?” Colonel Flint spat.

  “By my best estimate, we’ve got enough rounds to give each person on the wall about three full magazines each. And only another 1,200 shotgun rounds on top of that to be divided out among everyone who is called to the city’s defense tonight,” Henson explained.

  “Frag.” Colonel Flint shook his head in amazement. “Do I even want to know how things got so bad?”

  “Sir, we’ve been using up our stockpiles of ammo for a long time now.” Henson shrugged. “We all knew we were going to run out sooner or later. I can’t help that fact that now is the time it’s happening.”

  “I suppose you can’t,” Colonel Flint snapped angrily.

  “On the upside,” Henson offered, “we have no shortage of volunteers for tonight. Just about everyone in the entire city has asked to be a part of its defense, sir, even those who clearly aren’t physically able to do so.”

  Karen spoke up. “He’s right about that.”

  Normally, she would never have been part of such a meeting but Colonel Flint was well aware of Joe’s odd protective nature of the woma
n and had allowed her to be there.

  “As I said, we don’t have the means to arm them all,” Henson’s frown became a smirk, “at least not with guns. However, we could take the fuel that’s left in the truck that came back from the armory and use it to make a certain brand of flaming cocktails without having to touch our own reserves. We could also give them more … uh … primitive weapons.”

  “Do it,” Colonel Flint ordered, “but I don’t want anyone on the wall that can’t handle themselves well enough not to cause problems. The others … we can set up defensive emplacements around the center of the city just in case the Sasquatch get inside. It’ll make them feel useful and also cover us in case the worst scenario does happen.”